2 1 4 Winter 



the advantage, there was no pleasure in it. When 

 Andrew was getting bent and grey he used to tell me 

 he would far rather go to prison than undergo the 

 periodical beating to which he was occasionally sub- 

 ject, despite all the craft he was master of. However, 

 he had become used to the treatment, and made no 

 public complaint. It was a tacit bargain that he 

 should purchase his sporting rights with sore bones. 

 Once or twice, indeed, he expostulated with ' Velve- 

 teens,' who was really a reasonable and good-natured 

 fellow, but without effect. 'Man,' he would say to 

 him, ' it's poor work for you to hit an a'd failed man 

 like me. It's no as if I was young and yebble.' It 

 wasn't a bit of use. ' You should bide oot 'o the 

 grunds, then, if you dinna like your wages,' would be 

 the inexorable reply, as the keeper cut and stripped 

 the hazel rod or ash sapling with which in later times 

 the castigation was inflicted. 



Poaching, however, is usually transacted by 

 characters of a much more desperate caste. Yet some- 

 times the very worst of them will display a sense of 

 rough humour. Not many years ago, for example, a 

 gang of men were one night netting the Tweed, when 

 a water-bailiff, unluckily for himself, happened to come 

 on them. Being anxious to go on with their sport 

 they did not very well know what to do. It would 

 have been easy to duck him in a pool or terrify him 

 off the ground, but that would only have been the 

 means of his getting assistance. A very singular plan 



